The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 61 - 'International Insights' Chris Koelma
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Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstore Music Education Hub and our sponsor, Faber Music. As a listener of our podcast, you're entitled to 20% off Faber Music publications. Simply head to Fabermusic.com forward slash education and use the code podcast1 at the checkout. Now today's guest is Chris Kulmer. I invited him on, not really knowing in all honesty what it was that we were going to talk about specifically because he's one of those music educators that is involved in Music Ed in a whole vibrant range of different ways. Now, one of those areas of interest or involvement is international schools. I wasn't really necessarily expecting that to be so fascinating or even so relevant to some of the music education that maybe I work in here in the UK, but actually it has to go down as one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating conversations I've had on this podcast so far. I know you'll enjoy listening. And hey, one last thing before we get stuck into this episode. If you enjoy listening to this podcast, then please consider leaving us a review or spreading the word with other music educators. Thanks so much. Chris, thanks so much for joining me this morning. Can we start off with a bit of uh who you are and what you do?
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me. Um, my name is Chris Kormer, and currently I am doing a few different things, but primarily I have a couple of businesses, I guess we would call them, around music education. And I'm also a lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Australia. A previous life I was an international school music teacher, and I say previous life kind of tentatively, because I'm still very involved in international school music education through a number of avenues, which I'm really excited about. But that's really my space that I've interacted in for many years, international school music teaching. So I would say no matter what else I do, primarily I'm a music teacher and a school-based music teacher, and that's definitely my passion, my main thing that I like to do. So yeah, that's probably a bit of an overview. Maybe we can explore some of those other avenues, but maybe that's a good starting point.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Well, I I think for the first starting point is the the international angle, anyway. I mean, just to define what an international school is would probably be a good point as well. Um I'm uh after you doing that, because you know give it a go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I'll I'll start off by saying, I mean, I worked in Argentina for three years in international school, and then Malaysia for eight years in an international school. So in both of those worlds, I interacted with other international schools, and then since then I've been doing a PhD, which is specifically looking at international schooling and music education.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02So I've spent about three years at this point exploring this world, and so I've tried because that's what you have to do with a PhD, right? You have to try and define things, okay, which sometimes you just can't. Um, but I've tried to define what an international school is over the years, and I really like this definition by this other guy called Denry Machin, who I had on my podcast who wrote a definition. So maybe I should just read the definition. Oh, great. Like I think it's the best one. Is that cool? Yeah, yeah, it's okay. All right. So here we go. An international school is one which provides a private, fee-paying education undertaken in schools declaring themselves international. I like that point, whether implicitly or explicitly in their name or mission, so like ex international school, attended by full-time students who study a curriculum that is not the national curriculum of the country in which the school is geographically located.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. So that's quite a crucial point then. So the school in Argentina, for example, doesn't have to follow the Argentinian music curriculum. And five like a British international school doesn't have to follow the British music curriculum.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, a good example is Argentina, because over there they did the IB, the International Baccalaureate Curriculum, which is typically known as like an international curriculum. Okay. And if you want to know more about that, we can dig into it. But they did two. They also did the Argentine curriculum at the same time. So the students literally had to do double curriculum, like double school, basically. And then in Malaysia is a school based in Malaysia, but they followed an internationalized version of the English national curriculum, right? Like the IGCSE and the A level, which is essentially the same as the English G C S E and A levels, but tweaked a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Okay. So it's a complex one and unique. Uh who goes to these schools? Is this sort of like you know, I'm imagining the international school in Spain being lots of expats going to that school, for example, you know, so it's just full of British kids and what what's it? What's the sort of makeup of of these schools?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is a great question, and it's evolved, which is the coolest part to the answer, I guess. Historically, these schools were set up for traveling business people, essentially, people who are working offshore, as it was called, somewhere, and they needed a place to send their kids to school, and they wanted to do an English-style education or an American-style education. So the schools were set up specifically, often by companies as well. Like Shell is a good one, the giant multinational oil company. They've set up hundreds of schools around the world just to cater to the kids working, sorry, the kids of parents working for Shell. Wow. So initially it started off like that, and we're talking like 60s, 70s, like sort of post-World War II, it started. And then you had this wave of um just general like knowledge economy workers, people just like expats, as you might have called it, people working all around the world from different nationalities in all sorts of different jobs, and schools were set up to cater to that, and that's a bit more recent, and so that's the thing where you hear in an international school people are like, we've got 60 nationalities in our school or a hundred nationalities, and there's this thing of lots of nationalities represented. Um, and then more recently, for a whole bunch of reasons, which I'm happy to get into, international schools have been set up to cater to the rising middle class in a number of countries, so they're marketed to the people of that country. So Malaysia is a good example. International schools are set up and marketed to Malaysian families as a great option for education, and so many of these schools have majority um what we might call host country nationals, which is a disputed term, but that's probably a good term to use, attending the school. So, like you might have 80-90% Malaysians in a Malaysian international school these days.
SPEAKER_03Wow. And wh why is it that they're sort of marketing to locals, if you like, in that sense? Is that because that then there isn't so many people from other countries coming in, or is it a case of like your Eton or your Westminster or whatever, where actually people want to go for the the connections, if you like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think fundamentally that's that's part of it. Yeah, right. Um, so it's like a social mobility idea. There you go.
SPEAKER_03Someone goes to a more eloquent way of saying these are just all my fancy PhD words.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, we like fancy PhD words. That's good. Um, so yeah, these are like families that see a school and they're like, okay, this school has an English curriculum or A levels especially, or maybe the GCSE, the IGCSE is a good um launch pad. They'll see those curricula and go, I want my kids to go there because we believe it will give them better opportunities, usually to get into a university in another country, Australia, New Zealand, UK, universities, America. So they see it as this social mobility angle to um to sort of get a leg up, I guess. Um, but also, you know, like globalization has suggested that we should all be speaking English. So a lot of the time it's simply that. I want my kids to go to a school where the teachers are um highly proficient in English, and I want my kids to go and have like a very strong English education, which they may not be able to get in the state schools of that country. Right. Or the perception is they might not be able to get it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All down to the perception. Fascinating. And is there this kind of uh I'm trying to think of a way of wording this sort of sensitively, but I'm just I'm gonna I'm just gonna try and not care and just say it however. In in my my experience of working in education, particularly like in the guitar world when we're talking about um guitar tuition books or or grades or what have you, um I I know that in uh China, for example, there can be an appetite for accessing uh British, in our case anyway. I obviously don't have much knowledge of Australia and New Zealand, but uh British grading systems, because in some ways there's some kind of there's some kind of value to it, you know, this sort of establishment hierarchical thing, which I spend a lot of time criticising, you know, in this podcast, but then it it seems to in non-Western countries, it seems to be having m increasing value, whereas maybe I think fair to say in Western countries that sort of hierarchical, maybe elitist ways of accessing music education is becoming less popular or less relevant. Is is that a sort of a fair because that's not researched or backed up with any evidence whatsoever. That's just you know my own sort of experience and prejudice.
SPEAKER_02Is that sort of fair or I I don't know like any numbers to reinforce that. So I I can't like again, like you said, there's no research necessarily looking at this. And I've approached some of these examination bodies to ask for some of the numbers because there has been articles written about the increasing numbers of examinations taken by students, especially, you know, my experiences in the Asian region predominantly, like my Malaysia experience shapes a lot of what I say, but you know, there's things like yeah, um some of some well, let's just go with Malaysia, huge numbers of students taking exams, and I would, from my experience as an educator in this space, agree with that idea that it's seen as um it's seen as a well I again I'm gonna use some fancy ones here. It's like cultural capital or social capital, which is kind of that that academic idea of if I get this thing, it's gonna pertain to some different status. And so I I would see that quite often that parents and students want to get the certificate in an examination because it says something about them or it creates some kind of again perception about them. And I'm using this as a generalization, so this is not gonna apply to everyone, but seems to be the vibe um that you get, and uh it seems like it's not going away.
SPEAKER_03Everyone's pretty keen on this idea, whereas in uh more Western nations that's slightly changing, do you think? Or in that perception. I well, I actually what while while I've got got you here, if we could dive into that uh cultural capital idea because I I hear that word a lot and I'm not quite sure of understanding of it in because obviously I can see how it relates to say grades or uh again in that sort of hierarchical and traditional um way that musical culture works, but does it apply in modern terms as well of like uh success in I don't know, social media popularity or whatever, or is cultural capital very specific to that sort of you know, more traditional way that we're talking about?
SPEAKER_02I'm happy to use it broadly for sure. Uh I think in what we're talking about, it's more along the lines of let's just go for it. I mean, English things or Australian things, you know, I'm Australian, I'm in Australia right now, so I can say this, are perceived as being of high cultural value in many contexts. And that's because of globalization again, because of economics, most of the time, you know, if I can do that thing and be involved with these people, it's going to help me in the long run with how much money I'm gonna make or how much.
SPEAKER_03Because there's business and economy and shiny skyscrapers behind images.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Okay, yeah, and you get this whole idea in in politics and economics of um the knowledge economy. You know, everyone's very excited to be building these countries, whole political systems are shaped around building knowledge economies, and whole education systems are shaped around that. We want to get our kids knowing all this stuff, and we don't realize that there's a lot of other um areas of the economy that get lost in that process. Um, so that kind of ties in as well, like in the arts space. Um, I'm probably gonna go around in circles here, but it's it's get gets really convoluted because you have these people wanting to, or or students wanting to get, if we go back to the exams thing, they want to get these exams because it's gonna be perceived in a particular way. Yet they could also be involved in music in a whole bunch of other ways to establish other cultural capitals that are going to set them off in other directions that aren't just I've got grade eight piece of paper, I've actually been involved in the art scene and I've I'm a better human because of it, and I'm connected to community. That capital, that cultural capital might not be as valued as the the one that leads to the economic um capital at the at the end of the day. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it does, but it's really interesting as well, isn't it? Because that idea of value, what v what value each cultural capital element has is quite confusing, and our perception of that I think is quite often broadly wrong as well. Like the idea of being a grade A cellist, for example, you know, would be seen as a wonderful thing, um, and in a career sort of way, but obviously your options of employment, I would say, are probably more narrow than someone who is really great working with Ableton, if you like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, or or another one in the school context could be being involved in the school musical. Uh that is perceived often as developing some cultural capital in a slightly different way, because you're like up the front, I'm in the show, I auditioned, I got in, so I've got this thing that I can then say I did, uh, and I'm part of this this culture of musical theater, and and I love that stuff. Like I did music, I still love musical theater and producing musicals and whatnot, but that's another way it could be seen as well. Um, whereas maybe in the current climate, and I'm just gonna really say again, maybe the Ableton guy is like, What's what's that person gonna do? Like, what are you gonna do with Ableton? But the reality is like that's kind of where the music industry is today. Like, most musicians that we see perform live today have serious control of a door, a bunch of hardware, they're syncing stuff, they're playing traditional and non-traditional, whatever we call those, instruments, and like they're completely across all of it. So it's a really bizarre, kind of contradictory space, I reckon.
SPEAKER_03So it's it's almost as if cultural capital value is economic, but it's it's about a sort of uh again, a cultural perception of economic success almost. Yeah. Rather rather than an actual real because I re I reckon if you did come down and break down to what would be the most economically um beneficial musical route, I would think that I have no idea. Yeah, I got no idea. I just think of the musicians that I know and spend time with. I and what always fascinates me in these conversations is if I'm talking to a music educator from a working in a British school, for example, and and hearing about all those different routes of of learning and the kind of things that you work towards, and I'm thinking, well, most of the the guys, and I use you know the term guys completely neutrally that I know are haven't come that route and they're the they're the making the most money, if you like. Whereas the people that have gone that route are people who have just gone that route and then gone to something completely non-musical whatsoever, but again, this you know it's just uh um it's based on experience rather than numbers, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of music educators, I hope this comes across with uh flexibility in what I'm about to say here. But from my conversations to music educators, it's pretty hard to know what the pathways are these days. Like if anyone's able to define some pathways, I want to know. Like give me a list.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yes, yeah. Well, yeah, that's another layer. Yeah, that's sort of there are yeah, people haven't come specific pathways, have they?
SPEAKER_02That's the we don't know what they are. They change like tomorrow, it's different, you know? And that's the tricky part I find a lot of the time about being a music educator, especially when you have people that are thinking, what's my career gonna be? I don't know. Like, there's a few ideas, but I it's probably gonna change next week. So yeah, I can give you some thoughts, but just be open, be flexible, because you probably have to work it out a lot of the time, which is hard for people to hear because it's people like a nice clear pathway, don't they?
SPEAKER_03Mmm, yeah, yeah, it's the pressure on the teacher, isn't it, to design a curriculum that's sort of explainable and measurable, I suppose, is it? But ultimately.
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SPEAKER_03What what what do you with that in mind on curriculum do you think um do you think that curriculum is better when it's away from those traditional pathways and actually just being as open as uh possible?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Part of my experience in the international schooling world that I've valued the most is getting to know curriculum because I've come from the Australian New South Wales specifically, because every state in Australia has a different curriculum, which is good fun. We have a national curriculum that sort of binds them a little bit, but it doesn't really work. So everyone's got their own state curriculum. So I've come from that and then moved into IB and well, it was really just IB in Argentina, so international baccalaureate, and then into in Malaysia, it was the the IGCSEs and A levels at the upper school, and then in the lower school, it was kind of like a mishmash of everything. And I am so excited about the new IB diploma at the top end of school, which is I don't know if you've seen any of this or heard about it. Tell tell me all and okay. So if anyone's listening that is interested in this, just have a look around online and find the IBDP, which is kind of how it's abbreviated. It's an incredible broad curriculum. I think it's it's been quite scary for teachers of IB because it's kind of breaking the mold. The standardization elements have been completely stripped away. There's so much freedom for students to relate to context, which is super exciting for international school teachers because in international schools you have these really unique contexts of, like we said, kids coming from all over the world, living in different places. They might be host country nationals, they might be from somewhere else. There's this real melting pot of not only nationalities, if people want to be defined by that, but also ideas, what music is, what styles we like. And the IBDP kind of opens the door to all of it. And it makes it scary for teachers because it's bit's two years in. Because it was too broad, maybe, and it was kind of during COVID a bit as well. And now it's starting to become more defined. There's some organizations running some really good courses. We've had lots of conversations in the community, and we're starting to find some connections around like the world of who's doing what and what's working. But the best thing about it is it just really opens the door. Like you can kind of students can take their IBDP journey on a project, they they self-define it, and there's a bunch of elements which we don't need to get into, but it's easy to just go and read up on. And then there's an element called the contemporary music maker, which is like an extension of that, which goes again like another layer deeper on becoming a contemporary musician. So there's lots of students that are linking with other artists across another artistic discipline, you know, a musician with a graphic designer, and they'll connect up and create a project, and they'll their their final submission is essentially their process of creating this project. Um so that's like a quick overview, but it's pretty exciting because there's a curriculum now that really speaks to context. And to answer your question, then that's I think really where I'm excited in curriculum because we're we're really seeing students blossom in their ways, um, and defining what being a musician means to them rather than being constrained by you have to analyze these pieces, you have to listen to this thing, you have to perform to this certain standard. So it's just opening the door for lots of different types of musicians coming in. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, what what fascinates me, Chris, is from an international perspective, when you're uh delivering a music curriculum, obviously it's based on to some degree the traditions, musical traditions of that what did you say, host country, if you like. So a British music curriculum, for example, might be might be rooted in uh Aural traditions, but then also maybe strangely, hey, let's go to Germany, shall we, or Austria. So an Austrian music curriculum is obviously going to be quite rooted in uh Western classical and and notation, for example, because it plays such a part of that country. Um so when we go to somewhere like India, for example, I use that as a reference because maybe I've got a bit of an understanding of that music, where that is an hour tradition, and we're talking about rhythm in a completely different way, for example. So, how is that ever delivered in a in a sort of uh a way that works, or is it just now done because of this new course where it's the individual students going? I'm just fascinated by how that sort of has worked up until now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's lots of ways to answer this in terms of the IBDP, it would be up to the student to explore that music. So if you had a student doing the IBDP course in India and they were a Hindustani classical musician, they would hopefully learn and express and explore their musical world orally, because that's the way that music's traditionally taught. Across the board, this is actually a big challenge for international school music teachers, and it's something that we are trying to talk about more and more because the reality is that most curricula just prescribes what we do. And so, regardless of whether I'm teaching in Thailand or uh Dominican Republic or Zimbabwe, I just deliver the internationalized version of the English national curriculum, which is essentially English music with European music mixed in and maybe some scope for other world musics.
SPEAKER_03So sort of built on a Western classical tradition again, and then there's some other guys making some music over there that you know, here's a recording. Anyway, back to Motes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. It's kind I mean it's because the curriculum prescribes it, that that's where it goes, and also again, going back to why many of the students, and again, a generalization, but it seems to ring true, why many of the students are going to the school is because that's what they want, and that's what the family's paying for. So at the end of the day, that's what is delivered, also because many expatriate teachers, that's what they're trained in. So, of course, it makes sense. We deliver what we know, and the curriculum says so, so we do it. So, in the international school world, the conversations are opening up more and more to deconstruct this because we're coming in obviously with training and biases that are important to recognize, but we're existing, we're living in these places often, and we have colleagues from these places that have these incredibly rich musical traditions that are often just completely ignored or just tacked on on the side, maybe as like an after-school activity once every now and then. And the conversations we're having are around things like well, 85% of the world's music is orally and informally learnt and taught. Yet we're called we call ourselves international schools, but we only teach 10-15% of the world's music, really, or from that approach. And these conversations are awesome, it's challenging because it means teachers have to just completely deconstruct and reconstruct and work.
SPEAKER_03Which is kind of uncomfortable, right? Because it's kind of a super uncomfortable, quiet colonialism almost go. Yeah, because I I is a lot of uh are most of the teachers who are in international schools teaching music as well, as you say, they usually again from that western classical sort of you know, white guys basically teaching sort of dots on pages.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the reality is yes, but excitingly, and I say this hopefully from a perspective only that has come to me more recently, like I was not thinking this all the time at all. Like, this has been a slow process for me to recognize. Probably the PhD's done a lot of it, you know, through this like full-on deep dive. But the great and exciting thing is that more and more music teachers are coming from all over the place and working in international schools. So uh one of my favorite conversations I've had on the music teachers in international schools podcast is with a guy called Shayak Banerjee, and he's Shayok Banerjee, sorry, who's from um India. He was based in Mumbai, but it's kind of been around the place in India working in a school that delivers the IB. And Shayok won't be um he'll love me mentioning this, but he's he would like define himself as an international school teacher, delivers the IB Western style curriculum, but makes a massive effort to integrate Hindustani classical music in through fusion, through direct informal and oral learning into his classroom. And he's just moved to China, um, now is an expatriate, an Indian expatriate working in China, and is doing the same thing and really finding context over there in this really hybrid way. And that's super cool because now we have all these incredible musicians and music educators from all over the world who are teaching the Western style sometimes, but also these incredible informal and oral styles.
SPEAKER_03So, and sorry, just to understand there, so in in his role in China now in the Chinese schools, is he's bringing in the the local uh musical culture, or he's actually bringing the Indian classical vibes over there, exactly the Indian classical.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, so it's starting to like this uh transmission of English music or Western style music that I took to Malaysia, for example, is now happening in different ways all around the world. So we're starting to see a bit of a fusion of what musics people are bringing to these spaces.
SPEAKER_03Because I suppose it does come down to, doesn't it, you deliver even if you're the most sort of progressive teacher of believing that you can, you know, you're not delivering knowledge, you're just trying to inspire students, you do still come from a point of experience, don't you? So yeah, you're if if your background is in Tabla, then you're gonna come from that, or if you're a you know a rocker, then you're gonna come from that background, aren't you? And that's that's gonna be there.
SPEAKER_02Um and it's it's gotta be right, because that's what we want our students to develop, some kind of musical identity if we want to go down that train, and we're part of that influence, so we'll it's gonna be there. Something is gonna come across from our subjectivity around music. It's just about, I think, as well as the Shyok example, taking his context from India now to China and that sort of thing. It's also just really about finding host country music in those contexts we're working in and trying to integrate that in through culture bearers in the country we're in. Um, and that's that's difficult because it takes time to establish yourself if you've moved from another country to work. It takes time to like find yourself and establish your life, and then maybe two or three years down the track, you might meet some local musicians and get them in, but it's hard to integrate it straight away. But it's yeah, the conversation is there, it's starting to happen more and more, which is really cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, I guess it and in the outside of international schools, we don't kind of want music educators to just be, you know, grey sort of packages of neutrality that just you know everything comes from. Well, it could be like this or it could be like that. Kind of passion comes from a bit of kind of comes from a bit of bias, I suppose, doesn't it? Because you become beliefs rather than ideas, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, you you know when you've got someone who's just so into a style of music and they just fully embody that and it's like it's so cool. I guess for all of us with our biases, it's just about how do we how do we then like take that off when it's time for a student to express their identity and be like, yeah, that's cool too, you know, and not just be super overburdening with our identity, but still have it and own it and celebrate it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I guess that's the curriculum bit, isn't it? Because if you could you could go in and teach, you know, from uh a perspective of a complete bias of a rock musician teaching a load of uh what you know, Western classical sort of focused kids who want to do that just to flip it on its head, and actually, as long as the curriculum allows them to do that, they can recognize what you is that's the sort of sticking point, I suppose, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Mmm. Yeah, true. That's yeah, definitely that's where curriculum comes in. Also where school structure comes in, you know. If your school has provides you with the freedom to try stuff and to have a really open space for exploring your own identity and your students' identities.
SPEAKER_03Wonderful. Chris, this has been a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much. Tell us. I get I guess um it would be nice to point people in the direction of your podcast and how to you know find wonderful things that you do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the podcast is the Music Teachers in International Schools podcast. It's a very original name. Took me a long time to think of that.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I'm I'm big on original podcast names.
SPEAKER_02And the idea of the podcast is to have conversations like this, really, with teachers working all around the world and to just come to understand their context, what what makes them tick, some of their challenges. And I like asking a similar question to a lot of people, which is what makes a good international school music teacher, which gets people thinking, gets the juices flowing, and there's lots of nuance in the question. Yeah, exactly. Um a lot of the answers are quite similar, which is really good. So yeah, and then oh, yeah, and then you get really contextual ones where you're like, Oh, I'd never even thought of that. So, yeah, great insights. There's so many incredible music educators working around the world doing cool stuff, and that's what it's about. Exploring that, um, addressing some of the challenges we've spoken about, trying to grow a little bit, maybe in our understandings, and um also to create community. And I think there's a lot of organizations trying to do this in music education, which is really cool, like they're everywhere. Because I think most people, well, not most people, I hear a lot this idea that music teachers can feel a bit isolated in a school. Uh, you're sort of off in your little corner doing your music teachery stuff, and I think that's taken to another level sometimes in international schools, especially if you're the only international school in your city delivering this other curriculum, and yeah, you don't have any support network. So we find that to be quite a positive part of the podcast and the community around it. So there's a Facebook group that's that's all connected to the podcast and a LinkedIn, uh, and some very international school-specific professional learning that all ties into it as well.
SPEAKER_03Nice. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. No worries, thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode. Thank you to the Soundstool Music Education Hub for making this possible, and of course, to our wonderful sponsors, Faber Music.